Drama

PATTI CAKE$

Cert 15 109mins Stars 4

Everyone make some noise for this invigorating low budget rap drama straight outa New Jersey.

This confident and coarse debut from director Geremy Jasper is a familiar story of an aspiring young singer chasing dreams of superstardom.

However the fresh faces of its mixed race rap group with a plus-sized female lead singer give it an endearing vitality.

For all it’s abundant energy, grim location and abrasive language it’s a sweet natured tale of reconciliation.

Music is used to build bridges between generations of family, narrow the racial divide and cross the chasm spanning dreams and harsh reality.

Though predominantly rap based, in various ways the script invokes the musical history of New Jersey, from Sinatra to Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.

Aussie actress Danielle Macdonald gives a killer performance as self styled Patti Cake$, who works two jobs to support her all female family.

She’s a long way from pitch perfect, but she and her band are vigorous in using anger as an energy.

 

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING

Cert 12A 96mins Stars 3

This disease-of-the-week coming of age mixed race romance is an exercise in tasteful restraint.

Glossy, charming, sweet and unthreatening, Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson are the fresh faced clean cut 18 year olds. 

Maddy suffers from an auto immune deficiency and lives a life of luxurious captivity with no practical knowledge of life or love until Olly the hot young hunk moves in next door.

She dreams of plunging into the ocean with wild passionate abandon, almost as if it’s a metaphor for sex or something.

Of course they can’t touch never mind kiss, so they have an online flirtation while being presumably the only non–sexting adult teens in the US.

Additional  impediments to true love are her seriously over-protective mother and his abusive father.

Despite taking massive gamble with our tolerance for plot twists, this wish fulfilment fantasy will allow a self indulgent wallow for young teenage girls suffering summer holiday lovesick  blues.

 

A GHOST STORY

Cert 12A 92mins Stars 3

This supernatural melodrama sees best actor Oscar winner Casey Affleck hiding the light of his talent not under a bushel, but under a bed sheet.

Affleck is at his most furrowed and mumbling even before his character suffers an early death. The actor spends most of the movie hidden in the classic kids costume of a bed sheet with two holes cut out and not saying a word. 

Occasional moments of black humour break out as Affleck communicates with the ghost next door. 

Tastefully somber, this mournful meditation on the meaning of life is almost provocative in its refusal to engage in anything as crowd pleasing as drama.

But as Affleck spends an eon mourning for his lost love played by Rooney Mara, I began longing for the grubby pleasures of Demi Moore and her potters wheel from 1990’s weepie, Ghost.

For all the grand cosmic sweep and the literary influences, like it’s main character there’s not much going on underneath.

 

THE BOOK OF HENRY

Cert 12A 105mins Stars 1

The previous film by director Colin Trevorrow was the box office behemoth Jurassic World, and the next one will be Star Wars: Episode IX. It’s coming to a galaxy near you in 2019.

One was a monster hit and the other is as much as a guarantee as it’s possible to be. Which is just as well because this pet project of his is one of the mawkish and most misjudged movies of the year.

A shambles strewn with scenes of awful inappropriateness, it’s a coming of age fable for adults, a silly and sanctimonious ghost story, and a dull heist movie.

Henry is a gifted eleven year old and part time stock broker whose death leaves his mother distraught. However he’s left her a book of instructions with which she find solace and save the young girl next door from her wicked step uncle.

Rarely has a film so bonkers in concept has managed to be so boring and inept in execution.

 

 

CHURCHILL

Cert PG 98min Stars 4

Brian Cox gives a rich full bodied performance as the UK’s greatest Prime Minister in this compelling wartime drama.

Suitably stately and sombre, it’s a sometimes stagey account of his days leading up to D-Day in June, 1944. Having steered the country through the war, Churchill is affronted when marginalised by the allied Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower.

Moving between gravitas, charm, weariness and anger, Cox essays a deeply personal portrait of Winston Churchill. This is a man haunted by his disastrous campaign at Gallipoli in the First World War and anxious to avoid unnecessary bloodshed on the Normandy beaches.

As the outcome of the Second World War isn’t in doubt, we’re presented with a superbly performed character study, with each principal actor given their chance to shine.

Julian Wadham, John Slattery and James Purefoy respectively play Montgomery, Eisenhower, King George VI and and each give a distinctive interpretation of the very different personalities.

Miranda Richardson is sadly rationed as Churchill’s no-nonsense wife, Clementine, possibly because she dominates whenever she enters a room.

There are echoes of Shakespeare’s King Lear in this moving account as Cox humanises the great man, capturing his mood swings, self doubt, irascible spirit and sharp wit. Cox savours his dialogue, swilling words around his mouth as Churchill does his ever present Scotch and cigars

With an insistence on the importance of General’s leading from the front and concern for civilian casualties, the brisk script is inherently critical of the vogue for drone warfare.

An absence of spectacle and battles allows the elegant photography to conjure a carefully composed mood of apprehension and fear.

The power and intelligence of the film swell up on us, erupting in a magnificent piece of Churchillian oratory which may well inspire people to stand in the aisles and salute. It would be fully deserved by the film, and the man.

GIFTED

Cert 12A 101mins Stars 3

A high tolerance for sugary sentiment is essential to enjoy this syrupy custody battle.

The precocious, cute and extremely funny Mckenna Grace comprehensively upstages her far adult co-stars as seven year old, Mary.

On her first day at a new school, Mary is identified as being intellectually gifted at mathematics. But her guardian, Uncle Frank, just wants her to have an ordinary life. The pair have a winningly convincing chemistry.

Mary’s teacher unsurprisingly have the hots for Frank, who’s played by Chris Evans and best known for being Marvel’s Captain America. He probably gets turned down for Diet Coke adverts for being too ridiculously good looking. The git.

Waiting in court is Lindsay Duncan as Mary’s magnificently mean grandmother. She wants to send Mary to a special school so the child can achieve her full potential.

The script pounds your heartstrings, a famous maths theorem lurks uncompleted and the increasingly preposterous plot doesn’t add up.

 

THE FOUNDER

Cert 12 Stars 3

Though Michael Keaton failed to win the best actor Oscar for his soaring performance in 2016’s Birdman, he returned as an early contender for this year’s award.

However this biopic disappointed at the box office and Keaton will have to keep waiting for his long overdue statuette.

The former Batman serves up a snappy performance as Ray Kroc, the fast food visionary who engineered a takeover of McDonald’s and created a global brand.

His performance is the meat in a sandwich of greed which provides passing entertainment but isn’t as juicy or as satisfying as you’d hope.

 

MY COUSIN RACHEL

Cert 12A 105mins Stars 4

Cornish cousins are caught kissing in this period potboiler of poison, property, and passion.

This gothic murder mystery melodrama is a hugely enjoyable adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s 1951 novel.

Poor sound quality marred the BBC’s version of her book Jamaica Inn, but this is excellent in every department.

Actor Sam Claflin has matured into an engaging leading man, and is on top form as Philip.

Having inherited a large estate, the young  man becomes besotted with his recently widowed cousin, Rachel.

Rachel Weisz is plays a brilliant guessing game with the audience as a beautiful older woman of questionable morals, uncertain motives and no income.

We’re teased as to whether she’s a permissive sophisticate on the make, or a proud woman frustrated at her financial dependence on men who are inferior in brains, charm and experience.

A strong supporting cast is headed by Holliday Grainger who quietly steals her scenes as Louise.

Plus the earthy design complements the breathtaking coastline in what is easily the best film of the week.

THE SHACK

Cert 12A 132mins Stars 1

Sam Worthington finds god but loses any credibility in this toe curlingly cloying drama.

The UK born, Australia raised Hollywood actor has worked consistently since starring in sci-fi epic Avatar, without ever being in danger of offering an interesting performance.

Here he’s a hoarse whispering devoted father of three who has lost his belief in god after a difficult upbringing, committing a cardinal sin and suffering a family tragedy.

Receiving a letter in the post from the big guy upstairs, he travels to the frostbitten mountain shack where he has a divine experience. At least someones having a good time.

Faith based films are big box office in the US due to the preponderance of flag waving Christians, but are received less warmly in the UK by audiences who prefer to keep their religion for Sunday best.

An overlong sermon of the importance of blind faith in god, represented here by a gender swapping, multi-ethnic holy trinity.

This made me fearful of the possibility of an afterlife.

COLOSSAL

Cert 15 109mins Stars 4

Despite the giant lizard co-star which is seen stomping across the Seoul skyline, it’s Anne Hathaway’s talent which dominates this sci-fi black comedy.

The Oscar winner is permanently dishevelled under a heavy fringe and black eyeliner, she’s an irresistible combination of vulnerability, determination, comic ability and sex appeal.

She plays Gloria, a thirty-something writer whose inner demons have prompted a retreat to her small hometown in the US. She wakes one hungover afternoon to discover a real monster has appeared in South Korea.

Though the twisted script threatens to be a romantic uplifting tale of empowerment, we’re repeatedly pushed off balance by its dark turns into childhood trauma, domestic violence and alcoholism.

The creature is designed in homage to Japan’s Godzilla, and this is easily more entertaining than Hollywood’s two most recent attempts to make a Godzilla movie.

But for all the monsters on display, it’s the green-eyed variety which is the most colossal and terrifying.